The Ringer NBA Show
Play-In Fever, Doc’s Exit, and More Fallout From the Final Day of the Regular Season. | Group Chat
13 Apr 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hello and welcome to Group Chat. I am Justin Verrier and joining me, Rob Mahoney, J. Kyle Mann. It's going down, fellas.
Chapter 2: What are the play-in matchups to watch for this NBA season?
It's the playoffs. I thought you were going to be yelling timber. It is yelling timber. I actually went back and watched that entire thing like multiple times.
The bigger they are, the harder they fall, etc., etc. Do you know the whole thing? The bigger they are, the harder they fall.
The bigger the heart, the harder they ball. Crossover, pull up, swish, get the J off, alley-oop, slam, dunk. Playoffs!
See, I'm more of a four-miner guy. You know, 10% luck, 20% skill, 15%, I think, concentrated power of will. We need to bring it back. I don't know, what is this year's version of that song? Do we have anything?
I don't know what the kids are listening to on TikTok. Kyle, are you plugged into that realm?
No, I was going to say the 100% Power of Will era there was the highlight reel to, I don't know what the ratio was, but it was very, very high. I think it was on, at one point, probably like 80% of highlight reels. Yeah.
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Chapter 3: What insights do the hosts share about the initial playoff matchups?
And the percentages, too, you're kind of trying to keep track of it. It's like a Bernie Sanders bit. I'm like, what percentage is this? It doesn't totally make sense, but... No, we need it. We need to get tapped in on what the kids are listening to with the highlight reels.
That was a special era too, because it was like, let's take this popular song that already exists, get the artist to spend upwards of two minutes, like molding what he has onto what we're doing. And then that is our opening jam. And then you have a bunch of players who clearly are just with the green screen, like kind of fake dancing or giving it 10% while they're dancing.
And then they mash it all together. And that's your opening to the playoffs. Every single game.
I didn't realize until we're talking about it, how much I need this back in my life. So I hope it's not too late. I hope some enterprising production assistant over at Disney over at, I guess not Turner anymore over at Amazon, you know, like let's, let's bring it back.
My favorite ever was the I think it was on one of the NBA live games where I forget the group, but they put out a song that just like name teams. But the lyrics was like, what you know about New York Knicks, Phoenix Sun, ball and ball. And then it would just it basically would just sub in the names. I was like, that's the dream.
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Chapter 4: What is the significance of the 'Who He Tank For' game?
If you can come up with a track where you can just go in and and punch the names and just print the money that that's my favorite ever. Well, that's how Montel Jordan did it, right?
Like he was going around doing this is how we do it and just subbing out the city name depending on where he was in the NBA circuit. It's an amazing grift if you can get it. The Ringer NBA show is brought to you by FanDuel. The NBA postseason is here and FanDuel knows the only thing better than watching your favorite team win is winning along with them.
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All right, but we've made it to the play-in. Play-in fever is already catching fire, especially here in Portland after what a raucous weekend it was.
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Chapter 5: What led to Doc Rivers' exit as Bucks head coach?
Not as raucous.
For a city that's usually on fire, I'd say it's probably very...
I mean, you joke, but it's probably going to literally be on fire because it's been warm here.
Yeah, that was more instigating. I don't really believe that. But just be clear, everybody.
Chapter 6: What are the most intriguing off-season moves for the teams discussed?
Yeah, that was for a Justin reaction. And I got one.
Go ahead, Justin. Sorry. I will say the play in before the play in. We got a matchup between the Blazers and the Clippers here on Friday, which is probably the biggest matchup of the weekend, at least the one that had probably the biggest effect on the ultimate standings. If you look over like seedings and whatnot. Yeah. It was great.
There was, like, legitimate juice in the building for the first time in a while. It was probably the biggest stakes game I've been to since I've been here. That was awesome. That was a nice little prelude to what should be an interesting play-in mix, at least in the West. In the East, maybe not as much. A lot of teams just limping in.
And then yesterday, we had the Magic blowing a game against the Celtics backups.
Chapter 7: How do injuries impact playoff predictions for teams?
Um... just another football to the groin, Rob, and what has been just a procession of that over the season for the Magic. I mean, Jamal Mosley, do we think that he makes it out of the playoffs at this point? Because I have to imagine like he's probably not going to make it beyond that.
I think the balance has kind of shifted on that where we are over the curve of the safety of Jamal Mosley's job into he would have to do something to kind of save it in order to be the Orlando Magic coach next year. in part because of games like this.
They're not just losing, not just limping, but they've just been kind of embarrassing all year in these sorts of situations where we should know not only did they lose to Baylor Shireman and Ron Harper Jr. and not only the back... Sir Luca Garza, like really getting in there. Some like third stringers in effect, not just backups, but really deep reserves.
But they did it with like something actually on the line, right? If the Magic had won this game, they weren't going to get into that guaranteed six, I believe, because of the tiebreaker rules and the three-way tie they would have found themselves in. But they would have at least had home court advantage for the play-in, at least for the first game. Now they don't even have that.
And they go into this knowing that they had every opportunity to secure it. Their season will effectively be on the line. It's just, it's a fucking bummer, this team. They just have earned it every step of the way. And I'm just consistently sad to watch them at this point.
Yeah, are we to the point where not only is it like he has to win the job back, is it to the point where if they have success, if they have like a little run of success, you see this happen in college sometimes where a team will have kind of like a middling ho-hum season and then they'll put together a run and a coach will get extended and the fans are kind of like, oh, we enjoyed that run, but that means we have to keep the coach.
Like it's to that point where Magic fans are going to like not even enjoy the success. They'd be annoyed if this era continues.
Well, I just don't know how much of a run they can go on, because even if they win this game, they're going up against the same Celtics team, but the better version. Or they're going against the Pistons, who Kade comes back against the Hornets, another big game that happened on Friday. And all of a sudden they look pretty good. Like they look better than they had in a while. So it seems unlikely.
I mean, but there was just a lot of insult to insults.
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Chapter 8: What are the implications of the final day of the regular season?
And now we're here at the end and it's like, this is just a team that depends way too much on a Dembona for me to take them seriously with all due respect to a Dembona. So here we are. I guess we'll see who kind of ekes their way into the playoff.
You're not interested in the Paul George revival?
I was with Embiid, but without Embiid, I'm really, really not.
stuff more juice in the 910 matchup which I believe goes on Wednesday Hornets versus heat which on its face doesn't seem all that thrilling beyond the fact that it seems like the Hornets have a little bit of a team of destiny thing going overall in this season so I want to see them in the big boy playoffs the heat though is just staunch play-in veterans at this point.
This is now the fourth year in a row that Heat are playing in the play-in. And so I want to discount them. And yet this is what they live for. This is what they've been playing for for four straight seasons.
Yeah. I'm starting to wonder if I wish there were a less nebulous place to find play-in statistics, because I would think the Heat have to have some of the all-time leading scorers in the play-in, right? That was them or the Bulls or the Hawks.
It's like Archie Goodwin becoming the all-time summer league scorer. And everybody's like, I don't know.
Does he want to be seen with that? Nobody even keeps a record, right? Because it's supposed to not count toward anything, which I get. But just not even keeping it for posterity's sake. You could just put another subsection of basketball reference out there and just put it all there. But nobody actually does it. I have to imagine the Heat are up there.
I mean, the Hornets in the previous vintage probably also up there as well. The Hawks, we have to retire their play in jerseys finally. Good for them getting all the way up into the top six. But yeah, this is the Heat's moment.
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